The Pulsar you hear in the background is rather young. It is less than a thousand years old. And is located at the heart of the Crab Nebulae (M-1), in Taurus. Astronomer's can tell the age of a pulsar by the rate at which it spins on its axis. This perticular pulsar rotates thirty times in one second.
A Pulsar is another term for a neutron star (collapsed core of a supermassive star. Approx. 1,200 times larger than our sun) However, they differ in one extraordinary way: A Pulsar spins.
Let's back track a little. You may be wondering what is a pulsar/neutron star. Well, like I said before it is the collapsed core of a super-massive star. A star that has swollen to a thousand times its normal size, and over time burns heavier and heavier elements in its core. However, this process stops with iron. And once that fusion has stopped and there is a core of iron everything stops, briefly, then the star explodes.
When the star explodes it is more powerful than every nuclear weapon ever created by man. In fact, it is of such great power and force that man is almost incapible of comprehending the tremendous power behind it. The outer layers of the dying star are shot out into interstellar space. (The outer layers mostly consist of Hydrogen, Helium, oxygen etc...) Creating a brilliant explosion that can be witnessed by beings billions of light years away.
As the outer shells expand outward, the core of iron is collapsing in on it self. Gravity is growing increasingly stronger, and the core soon compresses into a star roughly 10-12 miles in diameter (The size of Manhattan island) It is consisted entirely of neutrons. (However, astronomer's have found evidence of protons and electrons within these neutron stars) These neutron stars are super dense. A teaspoon of matter from one would weigh approx. a 100 million tons.
